Barley adaptation and improvement in the Mediterranean basin

To study barley adaptation and improvement in the Mediterraneanbasin, a collection of 188 entries comprising landraces and oldgenotypes and current modern varieties from the Mediterranean basin and elsewhere was tested on moisture-contrasted environments in seven Mediterranean countries, during 2004 and 2005 harvest seasons. The experimental design consisted of an unreplicated trial for all entries, augmented by four repeated checks to which a partial replicate containing a quarter of the entries was added. Best Linear Unbiased Predictions (BLUPs) representing adjusted genotypic means were generated for individual trials using a mixed model. BLUPs were used for genotype by environment interaction analysis using main effectplus genotype by environment interaction (GGE) biplots of yieldranked data and for comparisons of landraces, old and moderngenotypes using analysis of variance. Mean yields ranged from near crop failure to 6 t/ha. Local landraces were better adapted toenvironments yielding below 2 t/ha, thus breeding has mostly benefited environments yielding above 2 t/ha where modern genotypes out yielded landraces and old cultivars by 15%. Current barley selection is leading to specifically adapted genotypes.